Models of the ocean currents where the suspected Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 debris was spotted show the objects may have originated 500 kilometres to the south-west.

Chari Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer from the University of Western Australia, used a global circulation model to pinpoint an area 200 kilometres wide in the southern Indian Ocean where the debris may have originated.

''We take the currents from these models and ask 'here's where debris ended up, where could it have originated?''' he said.

The model tracked particles of water, which could be carrying debris.

''We started on the 20th of March [when the satellite image was released] and asked where did these particles come from,'' he said.

David Griffin, an oceanographer with CSIRO, said his group had been asked by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to create ocean drift models of the items spotted by satellites on March 16.

''We're trying to compute from the time and place the satellite saw them to direct the other boats and planes to where the items would have drifted to now,'' he said.

To create these models, the group used data from three specialised satellites, called altimeters, which mapped ocean-surface topography, the hills and valleys of the sea surface. ''They measure the distance to 10-centimetre accuracy … of the elevation of the sea above where it normally is,'' he said.

Oceans currents ran along the slope of the sea like wind flows around high and low pressure systems in the atmosphere, he said.

''When we do a contour map of ocean sea level we can say where items at the surface are drifting,'' Dr Griffin said.

The models were tracking the movements of several large eddies, which were typically about 100 kilometres wide and moving at about 0.5 metres a second, or one knot.

''There's three altimeters in combination allow us to track the highs and lows of the sea surface so we can make a map every day of what the eddies are doing,'' he said.

''When we have current movements we can do trajectory modelling,'' he said. ''It's not completely precise but it's a big help.''